2016-11-121914 - 191897802260617640226061760ChicagoBlundenEdmundEdmund Blunden18961974World War, 1914-1918SoldiersWorld War (1914-1918)2007Great Britain. ArmyWorld War, 1914-1918Great Britain.137325262Personal narrativesUniversity of Chicago Press ed.2007In Undertones of War, one of the finest autobiographies to come out of World War I, the acclaimed poet Edmund Blunden records his devastating experiences in combat. After enlisting at the age of twenty, he took part in the disastrous battles at the Somme, Ypres, and Passchendaele, describing them as "murder, not only to the troops but to their singing faiths and hopes." All the horrors of trench warfare, all the absurdity and feeble attempts to make sense of the fighting, all the strangeness of observing war as a writer-- of being simultaneously soldier and poet-- pervade Blunden's memoir. In steely-eyed prose as richly allusive as any poetry, he tells of the endurance and despair found among the men of his battalion, including the harrowing acts of bravery that won him the Military Cross.PoetryUndertones of war137325262enThe path without primroses -- Trench education -- The cherry orchard -- The sudden depths -- Contrasts -- Specimen of war of attrition -- Steel helmets for all -- The calm -- The storm -- A home from home -- Very secret -- Caesar went into winter quarters -- The impossible happens -- An Ypres Christmas -- Theatre of war -- A German performance -- Departures -- Domesticities -- The Spring passes -- Like Samson in his wrath -- The crash of pillars -- Backwaters -- The cataract -- 1917 in fading light -- Coming of age -- School, not at Wittenberg -- My luck -- A supplement of poetical interpretations and variations. A house in Festubert -- The guard's mistake -- Two voices -- Illusions -- Escape -- Preparations for victory -- Come on, my lucky lads -- At Senlis once -- The Zonnebeke road -- Trench raid near Hooge -- Concert party : Busseboom -- Rural economy -- E.W.T. : on the death of his Betty -- Battalion in rest -- Vlamertinghe : passing the chat?au, July, 1917 -- Third Ypres -- Pillbox -- The welcome -- Gouzeaucourt : the deceitful calm -- The prophet -- II Peter ii, 22 -- Recognition -- La Quinque Rue -- The ancre at Hamel : afterwards -- 'Trench nomenclature' -- A.G.A.V. -- Their very memory -- On reading that the rebuilding of Ypres approached completion -- Another journey from B?thune to Cuinchy -- Flanders now -- Return of the native -- The watchers.BiographyWar poetry, EnglishiluUniversity of Chicago PressGreat Britain. Army.BlundenEdmundEdmund Blunden18961974Soldiers--Great Britain